Her face entrances me. The darker circle of her lips against the almost uniform white of her face stands out to me, making me long to be there, to feel the breath of them against my skin. I see them in my imagination, no longer leached of color there, but red as wet blood, stark against her pale skin. My beard scratches against her cheek as she whispers secrets in my ear.

When I first saw her, she looked to me bored or apathetic, someone forced by circumstances or whatnot to dress herself up--and in her offhanded way, she had done so to utter perfection, unaware that she was beautiful, except as everything that lives is beautiful. (That is the story that came to me, whether it be true or false. Perhaps I could tell more of it, but perhaps also things are better implied than said. Leave her some secrets.) But as she continued on my screen over a few days, it began to seem to me that she was not bored or apathetic, but unutterably sad, a sorrow beyond words, long lived with, made almost bearable in its company, in the contemplation of it. And it seemed as though she looked at me, looked into me, and saw the melancholy within my soul--and she said to me in her gaze, I know. I feel it in you. You are not alone.